Bait and Switch
by Mikkeneko
Summary: Political enemies of Asgard capture Thor, and decide to try to use Loki as leverage to force him to do as they wish. This doesn't go well... for anyone involved. Pre-Thor, no pairing, Loki whump, violence and blood, torture, Dark!Thor.
1. Bait

**Title**: Bait and Switch

**Prompt**: Thor's enemies torture Loki to hurt Thor.

**Warnings**: Blood, graphic violence, torture, extreme Loki whump, gratuitous H/C.

* * *

><p>They want him to kill his father.<p>

They want him to betray his country and his people, and this he will not do. They want his word - his sworn word, magically binding before the Norns themselves - that he will swear fealty to them and their cause and obey their commands, and only then will they release him from this durance. But this he will not do. They may beat him, with iron bars when their own strength does not suffice; they may apply hot iron brands but he will only let the blood-fury scorch in his veins and burn away pain, and laugh in their faces with the howl of the _bersekrgang_. They will not break him, they cannot break him.

But they will try. He is bound to a chair in a dull, low-ceiling stone room, the lower parts of some crude keep in the deep woods. It is hard to focus on anything, even if he wished to; his head swims with too many cracks, and one eye is blurred and stained with blood. Just enough light filters in to let him take in the rest of the decorations in this room: racks and tables, crude instruments of saws and picks and tongs hung from the walls. No doubt _they_ put them here in full view in order to sap his spirit.

He doesn't even know for certain who they are. He would have taken them for a rag-tag motley of bandits scratching out a living on the fringes of society, except for their leaders. They are a brother and sister pair, true partners in crime, and they claim to have their lineage descend from King Njord himself, before his fall. Thor can believe it; they have the fair beauty about them of the Vanir nobility, or at least what would be beauty before they had given themselves so wholly to depravity.

Thor and his companions had been on Vanaheim for three days on this ill-fated hunting trip, stopping only briefly in the governor's palace before heading into the deep woods in search of stag. It is true that they had been careless, riding laughing and merry through the woods with no regard to who might hear them - but Vanaheim has been an ally to Asgard for centuries, tamed and civilized under the Asgardian mantle. Vanaheim is supposed to be _safe_.

He wonders where the others are now. His brother and Lady Sif, Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral. He hopes they are safe. When the night attack came upon their encampment they targeted him, only, (and now he knows why;) he hopes that the others escaped, and are carrying word back to Asgard even now. Although if this band of degraded rebels could hide from Heimdall's sight for so long, they could search for him fruitlessly for days and not find him - weeks, months -

His useless circling thoughts are broken by footsteps, the sound of many boots scuffling over the stone. He tenses as they come nearer, torchlight entering the chamber ahead of the bodies that fill it, although he cannot turn to see them.

"Have you given any more thought to our proposal, Thunderer?" a voice calls out from behind him.

Thor tenses up as he recognizes the voice, his muscles clenching in anticipation despite the sweet clear tones. A woman steps around into his vision, pale in an undyed woolen gown and with ash-colored hair in a rough braid down her back. She is smiling, pale lips drawn back in a pleasant expression, but there is a light in her eyes like glimmering gas-light in the marshes: poisonous and cold, promising not warmth but suffering and death.

It is difficult to speak around the hoarseness in his throat, his teeth loose in swollen gums and his tongue thick and dry. His voice when it comes out at all sounds like he has a mouthful of gravel. "Rot in Hel," he snarls, keeping his eyes fixed on her as the rest of their ruinous band fills the chamber.

All of the bandits wear ragged hunting outfits of leather and fur, poorly cured and smelling of rot. Their leader alone wears the skin of a wolf up over his head like a hood, the ferocious wolf-muzzle crowning his head with wisps of muddy blond hair escaping the edges of the cowl. His sister wears a long plain dress of undyed wool, with only a belt of sable fur adorning it; and yet, she needs no more grim adornments than the faint glint of madness in her eyes.

"Truly, it was the fates that brought you to us," the wolf-crowned man intones. "The Norns meant for you to fall into our hands - through you we can strike at the usurper, Odin Oathbreaker, and restore the true king."

"My father is the king," Thor mumbles.

His handsome face face twists with rage. "Your father is a murderer, a thief and a tyrant!" he snarls.

"He and that puppet that he installed down in the palace are nothing but intruders on this world," his sister agrees, leaning briefly against her brother's side. :"The throne of Vanaheim belongs to the house of Njord, and the sorcerer-king has no right to it!"

"Queen Frigga..." Thor wheezes. "Daughter of Njord... gives him that right."

"That traitorous witch! She lost all right to claim the blood of Njord when she opened her legs for the invader," she says, lips working as though with the taste of rancid milk. "If she was so eager to lie down in bed with the tyrant, then she can be burned in the bed with him!"

Thor bares his teeth, tasting the blood that coats them like a savage animal. If this is meant to convince him to help their cause, heaping grievous insults and hideous threats on his mother is really not helping.

The snarl on her face smoothes away, turning back into a beatific smile as she steps back. "But I have given up trying to speak reason to you," she says. "Instead, I have something else that I think may convince you."

Thor watches warily as she turns her back to him and walks away. Of the pair of them, he fears the sister more than the brother. They are both evil, but there is a savage kind of malice in her that her brother does not possess. His ideas of torture are simple, straightforward - beatings, bruises and blood. These Thor could endure and endure. But there is something dark and twisted in the woman, which looks on his bound form with a cruel delight, that sends cold crawling fingers up his spine.

Women make the best torturers, he remembers hearing his war-tutor once say, because they are naturally more empathetic. At the time he'd scoffed at that seeming contradiction; now, he thinks, he understands. To have sympathy with your victim doesn't make you any less effective as a torturer - no, it only helps you know what _hurts_ the most.

"You are strong, Thunderer," she says now as she walks towards the row of instruments hung on the wall, perusing them slowly. She selects one and turns back, smiling as she holds the bone-saw in both hands out towards him. "You have always been the strongest, the mightiest in battle, cleaving tens of foes at once with a swing of your weapon-arm. Strong as a mountain, sinews like trees. What a very interesting metaphor, I always thought."

She lays the edge of the saw against his wrist, right above the shackle, and draws it across his skin with a sharp _scrape._ It digs less than an inch into his skin and the fat beneath it, and blood wells up out of the cut to spill down over the arm of the chair. Pain shoots up his arm in spurts and spasms, and he shudders as the saw scrapes over the thick tendons of his wrist. The blades of the saw are not sharp. "So I wonder how long it would take to cut through the flesh and bone with this saw," she says, cool and soft. "Can you picture it, Odinson? I do. Your screams in the air, the blood spurting from the stump -"

It's hard, but he manages to summon a laugh, hearty and full of disgust. "You will not," he snarls. "You wouldn't dare, because you still want me to fight for you, and you won't do anything that would keep me from fighting."

She hisses in fury and digs the saw deeper; he winces and snarls but does not flinch away, summoning the blood-fury to fuel the flames of his righteous anger. It sings in his blood with the familiar beat of battle and the pain is not, after all, so bad.

"Rathveig, he's no use to us crippled," the brother calls out warningly, and the sister scowls more in response, but then reluctantly lets up the pressure on the saw. Thor can't help a small, but savage grin of triumph: they may have him, bound and in their power, but in _this_ way he still has some power over them. They do not dare damage him too much, for fear of losing his utility; and anything else, he can endure.

"You're a fool, Odinson," she snaps, flinging the saw aside as she turns away. "Spoiled princeling, what do _you_ know of suffering? You don't even know enough to fear your own death, your own pain!"

She pauses, then smiles slowly, nastily, the glint becoming more pronounced in her eyes. "But maybe, then, you'll learn to fear someone else's."

At her sharp gesture, one of the rough-clad bandits vanishes out into the stone corridor. Echoes of footsteps and voices rang through the doorway, including one - faint, muffled, and almost indistinguishable - that was so familiar as to grip his stomach in sudden foreboding.

The brother leans back against the stone wall and folds his arms, smirking nastily. "If we needed any more proof that the Norns were on our side, we have it," he says. "We were blessed enough with luck to capture one Asgardian prince - fortune favors us with another one, as well!"

Thor opens his mouth to deny it, to curse it for a lie - but the bandits return in the next moment, two of them dragging a slim, dark figure between them.

Loki is wearing the same hunting clothes Thor saw him in last, now torn and stained. There is no sign of his weapons, his bow or his daggers, and his boots are gone. His stocking feet slip over the stone as he's dragged forward into Thor's line of vision; his skin is pale and lined with sweat, and reddening bruises cover half of his face. His black hair, normally so sleek and tidy, is all in a mess, hanging in tangles and strands about his face and neck.

Thor sits bolt upright, straining against the restraints that bind him to the chair. "Loki?!" he chokes in horror. Loki makes a muffled, urgent sound in reply; he is gagged, dirty cloth wadded into his mouth and bound there with a leather belt, and both of his hands are completely swathed in bindings and constrained by the guards on either side of him. It's clear they already know his brother is a mage, and also know that even the most powerful of mages needs his hands free to cast.

The sister reaches over and casually yanks the gag from around Loki's head; he coughs and gags, spitting out the wads of cloth. One of his guards leans nervously away from his prisoner, eyeing him nervously. "Your highness, are you sure that's wise?" he asks.

She smirks weirdly, her eyes glinting in that hungry way again. "Oh, yes," she says softly. "His brother should be able to hear him."

"What are you _doing_ here?" Thor demands as soon as Loki's mouth is clear.

"What does it look like, fool?" Loki snaps back. He's pale and sweating under the mask of bruises. "Trying to save your foolish hide!"

"By risking your own? You should be safely back in Asgard by now!" He burns madly to ask Loki what has become of his companions, if they were also captured or escaped to mount some further rescue; but he dares not, for knowing so would give away their friends to these madmen.

"Don't be stupid! You know we couldn't just leave you!" Loki returns heatedly.

"Isn't it touching, Kreppvor?" the sister interrupts, "How devoted the brothers are to one another. Such love between siblings is all too rare in these days, is it not?"

The brother - Kreppvor - lets out an evil chuckle. Thor's mouth snaps shut, and he gives the woman a glare of deepest mistrust. On the other side of the room, he can see Loki doing the same.

She turns towards her henchmen, and with a jerk of her head indicates a sinister metal scaffolding on the far side of the room. "Strip him and strap him in," she says. "And move it over here. I want the Thundrer to have the full view."

Loki bursts into a flurry of curses and struggles as the men come at him to wrestle his clothes off; where the garments catch on straps or boots, the bandits produce small skinning knives and simply cut them away, the fine leather garments reduced to jagged scraps on the dungeon floor. Thor's breath catches as an untimely jerk of Loki's arm drags his skin carelessly against one of the blades; but through a few drops of blood bead up along the scratch, it is not very deep, for they were not truly trying to hurt him. Not yet.

In the end they leave him with a jagged scrap of his trousers, stripped away at the sides to expose the lean pale flanks. It is not only for the purpose of humiliation, Thor realizes; Loki often hides weapons in his clothes, and if there were any on him now they are well out of his reach. The same for any amulets or items of magical power. He might not be fully naked but he is bare of threat, helpless and vulnerable.

It takes four men to haul and shove the jumble of heavy stone and thick metal bars across the floor, and three more to wrestle Loki onto it. Two pull out his arms and hold him spread-eagle against the frame, snapping bulky metal cuffs over his limbs - not only at wrist and ankle but at elbow, knee, and neck, with a wide leather strap crossing his stomach and pulling cruelly tight. It must have been designed for someone larger, because Loki's slight frame is pulled taut to reach each of the bindings, his feet barely brushing against the ground when they step back and leave him.

Rathveig steps up to critically examine their work, her fists planted at her woolen belt as she rakes her eyes over him from head to toe. He glares back at her with full fury, his green eyes promising poison, but that only makes her smile. She reaches out and runs a small white hand over his chest, up one shoulder and over the taut tendon under his arm, then suddenly stops and digs her nails into the skin and muscle until Loki hisses.

This pleases her, and she turns back to Thor with a smirk. "You think yourself strong, Thunderer," she says, "and proud in your strength. But I have learned over the years that a man is only so strong as the weakest thing he loves."

"Don't give them anything, Thor!" Loki calls. His skin is pale, but his jaw is set and his eyes burn with stubbornness. "No matter what they do to me, don't give in!"

"I... I won't," Thor says a little bewildered and unsure. He knows it to be true, that Loki is a prince of Asgard the same as him, with the same duties and the same obligations; it would be a betrayal of both their loyalties for Thor to yield, no matter what the pressure. If Loki is set to endure, then surely Thor can do no less.

Yet a part of Thor is suddenly afraid; for all that Loki has grown into a strong warrior and a mage, there is a corner of Thor's mind where he will always be the dark-haired baby toddling after Thor through their mother's gardens. Loki had tripped and grabbed the hem of Thor's coat when he had fallen, and refused to let go while he wailed his hurt and anger over his bruised knee. Frigga had laughed as she swept them both up and kissed everything better, and Thor had sworn with all the solemnity of the very young that he would always protect his baby brother.

Too late he remembers his captors; the woman is watching their exchange with an intent expression, reminding him of a shark on the hunt for blood in the water. She catches his eye and smiles at him, then deliberately turns her back and walks up to stand before Loki.

"Oh, my pretty, fragile boy," she croons, reaching up to caress his face; he jerks his head to the side, but can't move far enough to escape his touch. "I am going to enjoy taking you apart."

She steps back and with sharp words commands two of her minions forward, gesturing them to take up their places on either side of the strange contraption. One of them has a wicked grin on his face, snickering in cruel anticipation; the other is completely indifferent, eyes blank and uncaring. Of the two of them, Thor is not certain which is worse.

Thor eyes it warily, certain it is built for some nefarious purpose but still not certain what. It is huge and heavy, solid slabs of stone bracing thick metal bars, and with a blurred blink Thor thinks it might have once been the remains of a ruined siege weapon - a ballistae. It has the approximate shape of a huge crossbow, long curved metal arms that are meant to be wound back tight against a solid shaft. With massive pullers that could be wound either by a pair of oxen or a team of men, it could launch huge bolts thousands of yards through the air, to shatter wood or stone where it landed.

There is no bolt in it now, and whatever its original purpose it has been disassembled and defiled. Only the curving metal arms remain, and Loki's wrists are chained tightly to each of them; as the bandits wind the pulleys to crank back the lath, his arms are twisted back and up, tighter and tighter.

Already sweat is standing out on his forehead from the pressure, and he pushes himself up a few futile inches on tiptoes in an attempt to relieve the strain on his shoulders. He can't get far; the straps on his legs and waist hold him firmly down, anchoring his lower body against the stretch. "Loki," Thor calls out, suddenly afraid.

"Don't worry about me! I'll be all right," Loki gasps out, but the whites are showing around his eyes and his voice has gone breathless and thready. "Whatever happens - you can't give in to them -"

His words are cut off in a breathless keen as the pulley ratchets further, jerking him up against the limits of his bonds; the muscles of his chest and shoulders bunch desperately, trying to counter the force of the pull, but even the strength of a god is no match for the mighty siege machines. His eyes squeeze shut, lips drawn back over a grimace of pain - and then a sudden cracking pop sounds through the room, loud enough to almost cover his breathless cry.

Thor knows that noise, knows it too well from battlefields and, worse yet, from the skinning and quartering of game on the hunt; it is the sound of tendons beginning to give way. "Enough of this!" Thor exclaims, his hands jerking futilely against his own restraints. "This is without honor - without purpose - he's not even the one you want, it's me you want, it's me you should -"

Rathveig raises a hand in halt, and for a moment Thor's heart leaps in hope; he hovers, breathless, as she studies Loki long and wordlessly. His skin has gone ashen-pale, cheekbones standing stark against his face from the stress, and wheezing little grunts escape him as he struggles to readjust against the inexorable pressure, struggles to draw breath.

Then she turns back to her minions and nods to one of them. "Just the right side now, I think," she purrs.

"Stop it!" Thor shouts, exploding into a frenzy of motion as the grinning minion throws his weight back onto the crank, ratcheting the metal bar back and back again. Loki's body jerks and a scream escapes his lips, convulsions racing through his body as his frame is twisted and pulled. "Leave him alone! Leave him alone! I swear, I swear, I swear -"

But neither Thor's voice nor Loki's screams can drown out the sound, the horrible liquid _cracking_ noise as bone and cartilage give way. Before Thor's horrified eyes, the overstretched joint of Loki's shoulder suddenly warps, collapsing in a hollow in one place and bulging horribly against the skin in another. His arm extends horribly, unnaturally, a sudden slack that is immediately taken up by the winding winch, twisting and pulling his arm far out of place behind him.

Loki screams, a piercing shriek that threatens to shatter Thor's eardrums, and he roars wordlessly and mindlessly in an attempt to drown it out. _I swear, I swear by Yggdrasil itself that I will kill you, I will kill you, I will -_

His eyes are squeezed shut, red blackness behind them as his unspoken vow pulses in his ears, in his eyes, with every beat of his heart. _I will kill you, kill you, kill you. _

"What's the matter, Thunderer?" Her voice cuts him like a whip, dripping with scorn. "Is your stomach too delicate to look on your own brother? There is your brother, trapped in pain beyond bearing, and _you_ don't even have the courage to bear the sight of it! "

Her malice bites him deeply, and Thor opens his eyes despite himself, wet with tears. Loki hangs writhing on the rack, half-torn, and even though the winches have halted, it is clear that this is no reprieve. He doesn't ever really stop screaming, only gasping in half-breaths with what is left of his air, then letting them out in agonized moeans. "What are you doing to him?" Thor demands, voice blurring with sobs he can't let go.

"I? I'm doing nothing to him," she laughs viciously. "He's doing it to himself."

"What are you talking about?" Thor demands. _Kill you, kill you, kill you,_ his blood pulses with each vow.

Rathveig prowls again in a circle around Loki, reaching out and touching his flesh with false gentleness. Loki jerks back from each prod as though it were a heated iron brand, struggling with the stifled breath in his lungs to scream and scream again.

"You Aesir heal quickly," Rathveig croons. "There is a great magic in your flesh that knits it back together, healing injuries almost as fast as they appear. But oh, look at this - the princeling's bone is out of joint. His magic struggles to make it right, to pull it back together so it can heal, but it can't. The struggle between the pull of the rack and the pull of the healing magic - it must feel like every instant his arm is being torn back out again. It's a shame, isn't it, that he can't just turn it off?"

Thor surges forward in his bonds, lifting the chair he is bound to a bare inch off the floor before it slams back down again. "Let him go!" he rages, furious and helpless. "Let him go! He can't give you what you want!"

"No, he can't," Rathveig replies, and her voice is sweet calmness slathered over sickly glee. "The second Odinson is no use to us at all - and do you understand what that means? We can rip him apart, limb from limb, one at a time - we can, and we will."

Her prowling circuit brings her to the arm of Thor's chair, and she presses close against his side. The cold point of a knife presses under his chin, forcing his head up, forcing him to look unwillingly upon his brother's torment.

"Have you ever torn the wings off a chicken, Odinson?" she hisses in his ear, following it up with another little pointed jab. "A knife is no use, because the bone of the joint is too strong - so you twist until the joint comes loose from the socket. And then you twist some more, because the joint is loose but the flesh and skin are still holding it together, much weaker now, but _stretchy _and _loose_. You turn it around and around, again and again, until the tendons give way and the muscle shreds apart and the whole limb comes apart in your hands -"

"Stop this!" Thor roars, and he can't see Loki any more because the tears are streaming from his eyes, but it doesn't help because he can still see the vision the witch painted in his mind, replaying over and over in an endless gory instant.

Rathveig lets up the pressure, leaning away from his chair. "He has four limbs, Thunderer," she purrs. "With magic that strong, I do believe he would survive all of them. The choice is yours."

"Th -" Loki is struggling for breath, twitching agonizingly in the snare. All his silvered tongue is wasted now, reduced to garbled incoherence. "Don - uh. Nn... no... _nuh_... n-no..."

Thor lowers his head, weeping freely now. The witch is right, and he knows it. He's not strong enough, not for this. Hatred seethes within him like molten lead, blackening and scalding, but it is only pain, not strength. There is no other choice.

"I yield," he says lowly, and hunches down at the inarticulate cry of protest that comes from his brother. He raises his voice over it. "I yield! I will do what you say."

Rathveig pounces, the flames in her eyes dancing high with triumph. "Swear it," she hisses. "Swear on your name that you will serve our cause!"

"I swear," and Thor has to swallow, has to cough and raise his chin before he can speak. "I swear that if you let my brother go -"

"No conditions," Kreppvor cuts in, harsh and warning. "You're in no position to dictate terms, Odinson. You fight for us, and _we_ keep the brother as a guarantee."

Thor grinds his jaw till his teeth threaten to crack but the swine is right; he has nothing to bargain with. "I, Thor son of Odin, do swear on my name to obey every command that you give me, Rathveig, daughter of Njord," he grits out.

As soon as the words leave his mouth he can feel them take; there is old magic in an oath taken by name, one that cannot be broken. The siblings feel it as well - they are gods too, after all, no matter how far they have fallen. Kreppvor smiles, and Rathveig laughs out loud, very nearly clapping her hands with giddiness like a young girl. Loki must feel it as well, agonized as he is; he lets out a defeated moan. "Now blast you and boil you in Muspelheim's fires, let my brother_ down!" _Thor roars.

At a wave from the witch, the torturers step forward and take up the levers again; the pulleys creak and clank, and Loki screams again, dwindling fast into a gasping moan. He hears a grinding _pop_ as the joint is restored to its proper place, almost as sickening as when it first came loose, but Thor refuses to look. He does not want to see the expression on Loki's face, does not want to know what would be there. Anger, condemnation, for giving in so easily despite all Loki's pleas to the contrary, for selling out their father and their people? Or worse - plain pure gratitude, for that same betrayal?

Another stinking bandit steps forward with a set of clinking keys, and one by one undo the locks holding Thor to his chair. After so long locked in one position, his arms and legs are numb, and barely respond to his attempts to move them. The bandit shoves him sharply from behind, and he falls forward out of the chair, landing on his hands and knees at Rathveig's feet.

She stands over him, burning with triumph, preening with pride and victory to have her hated foe on his knees before her - broken in will as well as in body. Her pearly lips smile, then part as she draws breath. "Now, Odins -" she starts to say.

Thor's arm snaps out before she can finish her sentence, one hand clamping over her throat. The rest of her sentence is lost in a gurgle as he surges forward, no finesse, just overbearing weight and raw furious brute strength.

Rathveig lets out a choked scream as the two of them slam to the stone floor, his hands around her neck. The bandits on every side shout in outrage and consternation and surge forward, brandishing weapons or trying simply to pry him off, but Thor shrugs them off, intent only on murder.

"You dare not!" Kreppvor screams, somewhere beyond the press of bodies. An unforseen boon, that his own men should inadvertently block him from coming to his sister's aid. "You will be oathbreaker, forsworn! You swore on your name!"

"Aye, I swore, to obey every command that she _spoke,_" Thor snarls, keeping his eyes fixed on the witch's face. For certain, there are no commands in the gargling noises that are all that escape her mouth now. "But I swore another oath first, to Yggdrasil: that I would kill whoever dared to treat my kin so. And I mean to keep my oaths, _in the order I gave them."_

The witch's feet pound against his torso, her nails scratch into his forearm, but it is to no avail; Thor drags her in with inexorable strength, the deadly embrace of the grizzly bear. Fists and weapons beat on him from all sides but Thor can barely feel them, floating above the pain and sensation. His enemy is within his grasp and nothing can stop him now, nothing, _nothing,_ and he grasps the witch's head with one hand and _twists_ with all the frustrated fury and hatred of this night -

There is a ripping, grinding noise and a sudden cessation of resistance; the body in his arms jerks and goes limp, and all noises cease. Thor opens his grip, and a surge of hot liquid splashes his face and chest and throat as Rathveig's body folds to the floor, and her head rolls off in the other direction, trailing the crushed and torn remains of her neck. The eyes are open, wide and glazed with surprise, and the mouth open as though to have one last word.

"Command me now, witch," Thor tells the head savagely, and he spits bile and blood into the mess on the floor.

Then blows rain down on him and pain returns, blossoming in his head, his back and sides as the enraged bandits close on him. The world goes dark and distant as one blow after another cracks down upon his head, and the last thing he sees as his eyes dim is the brother kneeling upon the floor, cradling the headless body of his sister in his arms.

He comes back to himself back in the chair, the leather straps and metal shackles cutting cold into his limbs. Not more than a handful of minutes has passed, he does not think, for the chamber still stinks of fresh blood. He looks up, his eyes blurred and not focusing, to see the wolf-shape looming above him. It blocks out the light, only a few glints playing upon the sharp edges of canine teeth, or upon the cold edge of the iron bar gripped in one hand.

"That," Kreppvor says, icy cold, "was a mistake."

He swings the iron bar around and _slams_ it along the side of Thor's jaw, hard enough to knock it loose and set his head ringing. For a moment Thor is sure that the rebel king will continue, beating Thor's head until it caves in, but then he drops the bar with a ringing clang and turns to stride away.

_Loki._ Thor's heart seizes with ice, which had been so full till now with molten metal. The accursed with had let up the pressure on the pulleys, but Loki had not been freed; he is still laid out bare on the rack, muscles twitching and flexing as he struggles to breathe. Kreppvor stops in front of him and reaches to his hip, drawing a long, wickedly barbed knife from a sheath at his hip.

"You killed my sibling," Kreppvor tells him savagely. "So now I kill yours. While you watch, and can do _nothing_. No more bargains, no more oaths - the blood and entrails of the kin of Odin will be all my prize!"

He shifts the dagger to an overhand grip and lifts it high over Loki's exposed chest - then draws it down with one smooth motion over his abdomen, instead. Loki makes a noise that is more gasp than scream, as a wide arc of blood spatters out from his skin to splash on the floor. The bandit has opened a long slash down his stomach, skin and muscle parting to the side, exposing his guts to the light and air.

"You will beg for the end long before it comes," Kreppvor promises grimly, and lowers the knife again. "_Both_ of you."

Thor has no strength left, he just slumps in his bonds and shakes with waves of sick horror. All his might born of fate and fury have fled, and he is powerless to act. He was a fool, he should not have acted so rashly - he should have played along for longer, until he found some clever way to free them both - and now Loki will pay for his stupidity. Loki who is writhing helplessly in his bonds; his head is thrown back, his neck stretched taut and bare, and his face is locked in a rictus grin of agony.

No -

Thor has to look again, and then again to be sure, and even then he cannot understand what he is seeing. Loki is _smiling_. His shoulders shake and his lips move, not in screams but in silent laughter.

It makes no sense and Thor's eyes slide away from it, skittering away and back from his brother's form. His gaze lands on the spatter of Loki's blood on the stone floor, still steaming in the cold air.

Not steaming. _Smoking_.

It's hard to tell in the poor light - the stone floor is dark with grime, and the blood dark against it, but it looks like the stain is... _spreading _over the floor. The patch of darkness grows, and with it the writhing smoke - and then the ground itself begins to quiver, as though the solid stone is only a thin skin over a pot of liquid below. One that is rapidly coming to a boil.

Thor keeps his tongue locked behind his lips, frozen and silent so as not to give any warnings to their captors... who are intent on Loki, paying no mind to the uncanny danger spreading below their feet. They take no notice, even when the stones themselves begin to heave and buckle, then sink abruptly into quicksand. A dark, amorphous form appears in the hole, struggling upwards against the weight of the stones; still smoking, it resolves itself into a misshapen limb which glows sullen orange against cinder-black. The end of the limb flops clumsily against the floor, then using that as a lever the rest of the creature heaves up from under the earth with a blood-curdling roar.

_That _gets their attention.

But by then it is too late to act; already the floor is sinking and bubbling in more places where drops of Loki's blood spattered. Even as the bandits curse and scream and grab for their weapons, the first of the monsters turns on them with a vile hiss, spreading a wide skeletal mantle like featherless wings as its long sinuous neck darts down to tear at them with needle-sharp fangs.

Screams fill the air as the bandits turn to flee from this sudden threat - or stand their ground, and are struck down. Thor shouts with joy as flesh and armor tears, laughs as bandit blood flows. Kreppvor himself is one of the brave few that stands against the monsters; his dagger strikes the coal-glowing scales and shatters, and the monster he struck at turns on him in a fury and seizes him in its needle-fanged mouth. A second monster, jealous of its brother's fortune in meals, snatches at the flailing legs as they disappear into the ravening maw, and the two of them play a grisly game of tug-of-war with the last of the true kings of Vanaheim.

Thankfully, the infernal monsters seem to be ignoring Thor - and Loki - despite what easy prey they would make, bound and helpless as they are. But the smoke they bring with them fills the close room and chokes out what little fresh air there was, and Thor feels it burning in his eyes and stinging in his wounds. He struggles to stay awake, to work his way free so that they can make their escape... but the smoke fills his lungs and it is so hard, so hard to breathe...

The last thing he sees before his eyes shutter closed is a sudden burst of light, and a rumbling roar of rocks as the ceiling above them gives way.

* * *

><p>~to be continued...<p> 


	2. Switch

**Title**: Bait and Switch

**Warnings**: Blood, graphic violence, torture, extreme Loki whump, gratuitous H/C.

Author's note: To make up for the previous chapter, this one is almost entirely C.

* * *

><p>Voices are the first thing to penetrate his swoon. When he blinks his blurred eyes open once more, there are two dark-haired heads leaning into his field of view.<p>

"He wakes!" a familiar voice exclaims, and it definitely belongs to one of the dark-haired people he knows, but not the one he was wanting to hear from.

"Loki!" Thor blurts out as he surges up to a sitting position - or tries to, anyway. He is still very weak, cursedly weak, and the swift inhalation of breath he took turns into a coughing fit a moment later. "Where -"

"Thor, you must lie still," the voice says anxiously, and Sif's face comes into focus as she presses him back down against - well, it must be the floor, if the distance up the walls is any indication, but it is not so hard nor cold as the stone, so he must be lying on a blanket or something similar. Sif and Hogun both hover over him, their faces drawn with unaccustomed worry as they check him over for wounds.

Thor pushes them off, or tries to, with hands that shake and tremble uselessly. "Leave me - I'm fine," he gasps. "Tend to Loki - where is -"

"He's right over there," Sif says, indicating with a jab of her head somewhere beyond Thor's sight. "Fandral and Volstagg are tending to him. And you are _not_ fine, so please _ lie still_ until we can finish treating you."

"Fandral and Volstagg?" Thor mumbles, although he relaxes slightly at the news. Although they are all friends, of course, Loki has always gotten along somewhat better with the dashing swordsman and the boisterous bruiser than with either of the others. The former because Fandral would actually laugh at Loki's jokes, and the latter because Volstagg had a heart that matched his girth, and could get along with anyone. Hogun and Sif were always a bit too intense, too driven, to take Loki's customary needling in good spirit.

"Yes, you can see him in just a moment," Sif says in a businesslike tone, but Thor can detect a note of uncertainty threading through it that he doesn't like to hear. "He's... going to be fine."

Stubbornly Thor struggles up onto his elbows, at least enough to peer past Hogun to the shadows beyond. The Warriors have got a fire going, which paints the stone chamber in a cheerier light than it deserves; and he catches a glimpse of his missing companions on the other side of the fire. Fandral's cloak is missing from his back, spread out on the ground with Loki laid out upon it; another cloth has been folded and placed behind his neck, and Volstagg is carefully helping him drink something out of a skin.

Thor can't see past Volstagg's girth to see the rest of Loki, whatever condition he might be in, but Fandral is kneeling by his side with his arms obscured from the elbow down. Loki's eyes are closed, but Thor can't tell whether he's unconscious or just exhausted. It matters not, because his lips part with breath and he's _alive._

That reassurance at least manages to sap Thor's urgent fear enough that the weakness overcomes him, and for the moment he slumps back onto the floor and rests, staring up at the ceiling past Sif and Hogun's heads.

Or... not the ceiling, because the ceiling had fallen in; Thor remembers that, and he vaguely thinks he might have taken a chunk of fallen masonry to the head, even if he can't tell it apart from his other pains. The sky above them is shading to the slate-gray of twilight, but other than that they don't seem to have moved.

"They are all dead, then?" Thor says, and his voice comes out sounding weaker than he would like.

Sif nods. "When the signal went up, we moved as fast as we could," she said. "The bandits were in disarray when we arrived, and we did not give them a chance to regroup. Those that tried to flee from the bunker, we intercepted and put down. Those that stayed inside... well."

_Signal?_ Oh, yes, the roof had blown out and there were giant monsters. That would be pretty distinctive from quite a ways off, most likely. "What are you all even _doing_ here?" Thor demands, now that he has a chance to catch his breath somewhat.

Sif scowls down at him from her upside-down vantage. She has the look she gets when she wants to smack him for being stupid, but she refrains this time. "What do you _think_ we're doing, fool?" she chides him, and Thor feels a pang in his heart at how closely her words echo Loki's, from before. "We came to rescue you!"

"Yes, but what are you doing _here_ and not back on Asgard, getting help?" Thor argues back.

"Are you mad?" Sif shakes her head, exasperated. "There was no sign of you! You had vanished without a trace. Loki said you must have been magically shielded by your captors, and such a shield that could block his sight at close range would be sure to block Heimdall's at a distance. They could find you no faster than we, and you know what the time dilation is at right now - if we left you here, it could have been days, even _weeks_ before we were able to return with a search party!"

These were all things that Thor knew already; all things he had plenty of time to consider, through the long hours or days of his captivity. But that only led to the question... "If the villains were so well hidden, how _did_ you find us?"

"You," Hogun corrects him, and Thor scowls at him.

"No, find _both_ of us, surely you don't think it was any less -"

"No, Thor, you don't understand," Sif interrupts him. "Loki wasn't lost. Loki _let_ himself be found and captured, as part of a plan to find _you."_

Thor stares at her. Tries and fails to peer across the fire to stare at Loki. "What?"

"We didn't know for certain what manner of bandits they were," Volstagg said, lowering himself carefully to sit cross-legged on the floor. "But their clothes and gear provided a clue, as did the fact that they targeted you first off. Loki figured that if the attack were, ah, _politically _motivated, then they might be tempted to grab him as well if given the opportunity."

"And so I became bait and hook in one," Loki's voice speaks up from the floor, weak and tired but still _there,_ thank the Norns. Thor pushes himself up enough to look at his brother again; Loki is still lying flat on his back, but his eyes are open as he stares up at the broken ceiling.

Thor is furious. "You made my brother risk himself on such a foolish scheme?" he demands in outrage. "He could have been killed - he nearly _was_ killed -"

"It was _his_ plan, Thor," Sif says with a sigh. "As none of us had a more clever one, we agreed."

Loki's plan? This whole nightmare of an evening - the capture, the torment - has all been according to _Loki's_ plan? Thor shakes his head, unable to believe it.

"I knew that they would never allow me to cast any magics once I was in their custody," Loki continues. "Nor did I think it likely they would let me keep any amulets or other objects on my person. And so, I enchanted my blood."

Thor stares at him, thinking he could not possibly have heard right. "You _what?"_ he manages to say.

Loki flashes a quick grin, and Thor is reminded horribly of the expression of deathly triumph on his face while Kreppvor and his mercenaries had been tearing into his flesh. "It was actually a fairly simple spell," he says, "not _easy_ of course - I performed most of the summoning ritual elsewhere, then tied the trigger to its completion into my blood. As soon as a single drop of my blood reached the earth, the ritual was complete, and the monsters so spectacularly arrived on the scene."

There is so much wrong with this plan that Thor is not really sure where to start - his brother for coming up with such a hare-brained scheme, or his friends for allowing it. They must truly have been desperate, if they did not even blink at Loki's blatant usage of the darkest of summoning arts. And Loki himself - Thor does not imagine himself a master of magic, but even he knows how dangerous it is to bind any of those infernal beasts to any part of yourself, especially something as powerful as blood.

His brother sighs, his eyes fluttering shut as his head drops back against Fandral's cloak. "I admit," he says, his voice quieter and more feeble. "I was not quite expecting... such ingenuity. I knew they would torture me, of course - but I never dreamed that they could - hurt, so much, without ever drawing a single drop of my blood."

Thor's friends exchange an anxious look over his head, and Volstagg gives Loki's shoulder a clumsy, comforting pat. "Well, it is all over now," he says heartily, forcing cheer. "Everything worked out in the end - do you need more draught for the pain? There is still a little left..."

"Better not," Hogun cautions him. "Too much of that stuff can be addictive - or even toxic."

"But it's all we have!" Fandral exclaims. "This was supposed to be a _hunting_ trip - we didn't bring any serious medical supplies with us. We need to get back to Asgard, and quickly!"

"Are Thor and Loki well enough to be moved?" Sif asks, throwing a worried glance across the fire. "You know how hard the Bifrost can be on injuries..."

Loki does not interrupt the conversation, which is unlike him, and alarming; he has never liked being talked over. But his eyes have fallen closed, and his breathing is dangerously slow and shallow.

"Well, it's not going to get any better for sitting around here," Fandral says with a huff. "We've got to get out of here before those healing stones run out!"

Thor knows of what he is speaking. Healing stones, despite their seemingly miraculous powers, are actually only a short-term fix. Their magic, bound to small stones to be portable and quiescent for easy use, heals wounds by rewinding time around the hurt flesh until before the injury was inflicted. Thor doesn't fully understand the magical theory (Loki does; he once demonstrated the principle in a truly disturbing experiment involving a healing stone, a knife, and two halves of a mouse) but he knows, as does every warrior of Asgard, that healing stones are only a stopgap measure until the wounded can be brought to real medical attention. Or, in the last extremity, to keep them on their feet and fighting till they die.

But that will not happen today. Thor gathers his strength and pushes up from the ground, climbing to his feet with a great effort. "Fandral is right. Waiting abets us nothing," he says. "Fandral, Hogun - make a litter, as best as you can, to carry Loki out of this place. Sif, keep watch for any more bandits who may still be out there. Volstagg..." Thor trails off, still ashamed to show weakness, but of all of them Volstagg has the most strength to spare. "Lend me your support, my friend."

"Of course, my prince," Volstagg murmurs, and readily offers his arm for Thor to lean on.

Despite their help, climbing the stone stairs out of that dungeon is one of the hardest things Thor has ever done; the air crowds close and stifling around them, reeking of horrors and death. But then they are out and under the open sky, in a little clearing between the forest's edge and a rocky overhanging cliff. There are pieces of rock, here and there, strangely softened and slumped from where they half-melted as they were blasted into the air when Loki's conjured monsters shattered the roof. Where did they go, anyway? Thor doesn't think Loki will be able to answer that, and isn't sure he wants to know.

Vanaheim opens out around them, deceptively serene and beautiful under the night sky. Stars are appearing in the velvety darkness overhead, blanketing the forest in starlight. Thor stares upwards into the sky as his friends carefully carry the broken body of his brother up out of the dungeon, and gathers his breath for the call. "Heimdall! Open the Bifrost!"

* * *

><p>Thor's stay in the healing rooms is not protracted. He has always healed quickly and well, and now is no exception; before a day has passed most of the bruises are already fading and the worst of the cuts have scabbed over. There will be some scarring, Eir tells him, but it will be faint. Thor would prefer to have no reminders of this cruel day, but he is not ashamed of scars.<p>

By the second day he has been discharged back to his own quarters to rest, and discovers that not all scars are on the skin.

Though he knows that he is safe now and well, he finds himself full of nerves, jumping at every little sound. The shadows out of the corner of his eye seem to form into the shape of a fanged wolfskin hood, and the lights that gleam out of the depths of his mirrors seem to match the spark of madness in Rathveig's dead eyes. All that was familiar seems now unmoored, adrift, and as much as he berates himself for foolishness he cannot help but wonder: Vanaheim was supposed to be safe, and it was not. What else is not safe?

Worst of all is the emptiness of his brother's rooms, for Loki has not yet been discharged from the healer's rooms. He has ever been slower to heal than Thor, and he was far more sorely wounded this time. It has been many years since the brothers shared a room, but when Loki moved out he didn't go far; his chambers still abut Thor's with a shared balcony on which they had spent many a night stargazing, talking and (more recently) drinking till the moon set.

Not every night. It is not unknown - and becoming less so, in recent years - for Loki to shut himself into his rooms for days at a time, or disappear from the palace entirely for weeks. Yet even though Thor knows he is not far, the balcony seems hauntingly empty.

It's different now - now that he knows that Loki is not away of his own choice, careless and carefree, but confined to the infirmary by horrific wounds that he suffered for Thor's own sake. Guilt eats at him like acid, paining him more than any of his own fading injuries, and even the comforts of Asgard seem dull and flattened under the weight of it.

Nights are the worst - Thor cannot sleep, tossing restlessly on the very edge of slumber; for the darkness seems full of faint noises that, just on the edge of hearing, transmute into his brother's cries for help. Time and time again Thor starts up, certain he heard Loki calling for him, only to remember that it is impossible - Loki is in the infirmary, on the other side of the palace - and lie back down.

When he does sleep it is no respite: he is tormented by dreams that are half-memory and half cruel fantasy. He dreams again of the monsters that Loki summoned in his vengeance, except this time instead of the wicked Vanir they have Loki in their claws. Loki begs Thor for help as the vicious claws tear him slowly apart, but Thor's limbs are mired in molasses and he cannot move fast enough.

Thor jumps awake, eyes wide and staring in the darkness. False shining phantoms hang in the air above his head close enough to reach out and touch, horrible visions of metal framework and bright exposed bone. They aren't real, Thor _knows_ they aren't real, but that doesn't help; he shudders and presses his fingers into his eyes, willing his traitorous heart to calm.

He must find Loki. He must go to him and see that he is all right, that none of these visions are true, and then he'll feel better. Thor pulls on a light robe even though he is soaked with sweat - knowing if he does not, he'll quickly chill down - and sneaks quietly from his chambers to make his way to the healing rooms, stopping only to make a detour in the night kitchens.

He avoids meeting others in the hallways, and when he slips into the infirmary it is empty except for his brother. As a prince, Loki has a chamber to himself, and the healers have all gone to sleep except for a young apprentice in the other room keeping watch over a bank of monitoring spells.

The chamber itself does not lack for comfort, though it is still unmistakably a healing room. The bed is low to the ground to allow easy access to the patient, but the mattress is soft and the blankets and sheets soft and kind to healing skin. Runes are carved into the headboard - some glimmer with light, showing the status of the bed's occupant, while others are tied to numbing and pain-relief spells that can be used at need. On the outer wall of the chamber are large glass doors opening onto a small balcony; they are flung wide now, flooding the chamber with silver moonlight.

Beside the bed is a long shelf or table, festooned with gifts from well-wishers, and it eases Thor's heart to see that there are many of them at the same time he feels his throat sting to realize that none of them are from him. He recognizes some of them as charms or gifts from their friends; an ornate silver knife belonging to Fandral, and a basket of cookies that Thor knows are the specialty of Volstagg's wife Hildegund (unopened.) It must have been a great trial for Volstagg, Thor thinks with a smile, to bring them here without sampling any.

But his smile fades as he studies Loki himself. He came here hoping that the sight of Loki would chase away the evil memories, but if anything Loki looks even worse than before. He is wearing a light robe not unlike Thor's, with the top unfastened and loose; his chest and shoulders are covered with blazingly spectacular bruises, marching around his shoulder and neck and across his chest. They darken to an even uglier color around his right shoulder, before disappearing under a smooth white brace; Thor winces to think at how painful they must be. Another white bandage wraps his lower abdomen; Thor can just see the edge of an ugly red cut at the top of it.

Bruises decorate Loki's forehead and cheek, as well, although these at least are starting to fade already; still his face is lined with exhaustion and pain, deep sunken circles around his eyes. He looks as though he is sleeping, albeit fitfully; and so it is a surprise when Loki speaks.

"Do you really find your return to palace life that boring," Loki says in a raspy voice, "that you find more entertainment in watching me sleep?"

Thor blushes like a student caught without an answer as he stutters in reply. "No... not..." he says. "I... I just wanted to make sure that you are well, Brother."

"I am as well now as I was yesterday," Loki says, and finally opens his eyes. They are shot through with red. "Better, in fact. What are you doing here?"

Thor shuffles about, and brings out his napkin-wrapped spoils from his stop by the kitchen. "I... thought you might be hungry. They were making cheesecake in the kitchens - I know that is your favorite..."

Loki tries to sit up and immediately sags back, grimacing at the pain the aborted movement apparently caused him. "Unfortunately for you and Volstagg's well-meaning wishes," he says, "your fine gift will have to go unappreciated. I cannot have anything more than fine broth for another day or two yet, while my guts finish recuperating."

"Oh." Thor wilts, guilt digging its claws into him again. He should have known that; he should have guessed. Kreppvor had torn deep into Loki's core in his last rage; Asgard's healers were powerful and knowing, but recovering from such a deep wound takes time. "I... I'm sorry."

And it is all Thor's fault. All Loki had suffered... still suffers... because Thor was not strong enough to protect him, because Loki willingly gave himself to such an ordeal just to rescue him. Because Thor was not strong or clever enough to rescue himself first.

"You should be. The soup they serve here is absolutely abominable. I might as well be drinking straight glue." Loki watches him for a moment, then sighs. "What _is_ the matter with you, Thor?"

"I am sorry..." Thor looks at the splash of moonlight on the floor, at the soothing art on the walls, at anything except Loki's face. "I... I cannot sleep... I keep seeing... hearing..."

"Tch." Loki made a noise of exasperation. "I should have guessed you'd be moping around. Don't tell me you were so deeply affected by my performance?"

Thor's head snaps up, eyes blazing with anger. How can Loki insinuate that Thor would not care? "Of course I - performance? What performance?"

"Back in the bandit's lair, of course," Loki says offhandedly. His eyes never waver from Thor's face. "Oh. You didn't realize? It was all a show. I took the precaution before I allowed myself to be captured of casting a spell on myself that would numb all pain. I didn't feel a thing. All that screaming and flailing, that was just an act to fool our captors."

Thor stares at him, mouth opening and closing as he tries to form words. "It... it wasn't real?" he finally manages to say. All his guilt, all his remorse - it was for nothing? For a moment he feels a flash of anger - that he has been duped, wallowing around in misery when it was so unnecessary - but mostly he just feels an overwhelming sense of _relief. _The iron bands around his chest seem to snap, allowing him to breathe in deeply for the first time in days, stand up straight without the weight of guilt pressing him down. Loki was all right. Loki really was all right, and Thor has not failed him. "You really didn't feel any pain?"

But wait. Something about this isn't right, isn't adding up. Thor frowns, running memories over in his head. Back on Vanaheim, right after Thor had regained consciousness, Loki had admitted that he had not expected their enemies to torture him with such ingenuity; he hadn't planned for the torture session to drag out so long. If he had expected his spell to take effect within only a few moments of his capture, then why would he have gone to the trouble of casting such an extensive and difficult spell on himself first?

"Of course not," Loki scoffs. "I am quite fond of you, my brother, but not _that_ fond that I would put myself through such an ordeal unfeigned. It was a good show, though, if I may say so myself."

"Aye," Thor says slowly. He is more sure than ever that Loki is lying - not then, but now, pretending he is fine when in fact he is not. But why? Why would Loki lie to him, about _this?_ To lessen the sensation of humiliation, perhaps; to cover up the fact that he misjudged the situation and was hurt so badly as a result of his mistake. Thor knows the the sting of shame well himself, and Loki has always been more vulnerable to it than himself. Perhaps Loki is like a cat, that takes a bad tumble and then washes itself with great dignity, making shift as though the fall had been all his own idea. "You were ever a skilled actor..."

Watching Loki carefully, Thor sees his brother relax minutely against the covers as Thor seems to accept the lie, sees the slump of his good shoulder and quiet exhalation of breath. In a flash Thor understands; Loki is lying for _his_ sake, Thor, to divest him of the weight of guilt and banish the horrible memories that haunt him.

That his brother would do that for him - even in his usual underhanded way, to try so hard to ease Thor's conscience - fills Thor with a glowing warmth. But it is not right, that Loki should go on having to bear the memory of pain while Thor is allowed to forget it. So he reaches out to the head of the bed, gently cupping the side of Loki's neck in his palm, and Loki's eyes widen as Thor leans in close.

"...but not _that_ skilled, I do not think," he says quietly. "You do not need to lie to me to make me feel better, Loki."

Loki swallows hard. "I -" he says, stuttering himself now that his composure has failed him. "I only meant to -"

"I know," Thor says, and smiles. "It is very kind of you, Brother. But not necessary. I don't think I've said it yet, Loki, so... thank you. For rescuing me, for being willing to risk such horrors to save me. It was very brave. _You _are just so... incredibly brave."

Loki's eyes brighten, filling with a gleam of silver that reflects the moonlight. Thor leans forward and presses his forehead against Loki's, careful not to rest any of his weight on his brother's wounded form.

When at last he straightens up again, Loki has a small smile on his face, though lines of silver track down his temples from the corners of his eyes into his hair. There's a matching wetness on Thor's cheeks that he tries to ignore. "Is there anything you need, Brother?" Thor says, brushing his hand over his face with studied casualness. "Perhaps not food, but - anything else? Books to read? Anything I can bring from your chambers?"

"A comb," Loki says promptly, then hesitates. "Or - then again, better not. I can't," and he lifts his right hand just a few inches to illustrate, wincing in discomfort. "Can't really lift my hands high enough to brush it right now, anyway."

"That is no impediment, then," Thor informs him, rummaging around in the chest of drawers by the wall until he finds a comb left among the healing supplies. He holds it up to Loki, smiling in triumph. "I shall be your hands!"

"Oh? And will you wipe my ass, later, too?" Loki says sweetly, and laughs at the expression on Thor's face. "I may hold you to that, too. But come. I may be stuck here for a while longer, but I need not look like a rat's nest in the duration."

Thor smiles, declining for now to engage in any more brotherly ribbing; he crosses back to the bed and seats himself on the edge by the pillow. With much coaxing and hissing he manages to carefully maneuver Loki up so that his head and neck are supported against Thor's thigh, and he can run the comb through his brother's hair unencumbered.

It's all right. Maybe not yet. But it's going to be all right.

* * *

><p>~end.<p> 


End file.
